OVERTURE SYNOPSIS
HOME PENUMBRA: OVERTURE Your name is Philip LaFresque and shortly after burying your recently departed mother you receive a strange letter from Howard, the father who abandoned you before your birth and who has been assumed dead for some time. The letter talks about documents that have been placed in a box at a bank in Mayfair and instructs Philip to destroy them. The documents themselves describe a mine in northern Greenland and gives coordinates to its exact location. Philip does not follow the advice of the strange letter, instead he books a flight to Greenland and a subsequent boat trip to the frozen expanse that hides the mines location. Arriving at the aproximate location of the mine and nearly frozen to death Philip finds an entrance and climbs inside, escaping the frozen landscape of Greenland but entering a far worse nightmare filled with puzzling situations, deformed and dangerous creatures, endless empty corridors, small abandoned rooms and best of all no apparent exit as the ladder he climbed down on has collapsed. Penumbra is a test of resolve and mental stamina as you steer Philip through the pathways of the North-Western Iron Mine, the name of which Philip learns in one of the many documents he finds as he investigates the periphinalia left behind by the mine's previous inhabitants. Philip never actually meets anyone alive in the mine although he does find a radio that brings him the voice of Red, one of the original mine workers from the 70's who now sounds a bit like a raving lunatic. There are many documents and notes to be found that give details of what people were doing down here and some of those people have been here quite recently but Red offers the only hope of any answers; that is if you can find him. Philip's, and there by your own, journey starts in a part of the mine facility that houses an office, storage rooms, a workshop and explosives storage. Right from the beginning it seems very lonely, setting you at an unease that will follow you for the entire game. The ability of Overture to set mental stresses in motion is vaguely apparent as you move through the corridors for the first time, peaking around corners, becoming more fixated on the prison like sentence you have found yourself in. Your main goal is to find Red because for one he is the only living voice you have heard since being trapped in the mine, secondly he has said he would anwer your questions and thirdly you have about zero other options except to stay alive. Although you find no living specimens of your own race you will find several examples of infected, feral dogs who would like nothing more than to gnaw on your pitiful bones. The first few encounters with these creatures is quite exhilerating as time stands still for just an instant as you crouch low in what you hope is suitable concealment. It's the only course of action you have mastered thus far, crouching, hiding and sneaking; the times you have been spotted ending with you behaving in a panic right before you slump to the floor and become a fresh meal. The smacking of the dogs jawls as it feasts on your newly laid corpse is an insult and you vow to destroy this dispicable animal and all of its kin. The adrenaline and emotion found in the first encounters with the feral dogs soon gives way to anger fueled revenge as you learn how to expertly attack and kill them which eventually gives way to calculated manuevers and annoyance as you just wish the germ ridden beasts would leave you be to explore the mine. Thankfully the mine is not overidden with them but they are spaced just right in the areas they patrol to make outright avoidance tough and they will call for help if you don't stay on them after attacking. After investigating the first portion of the complex and putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together; which might involve any number of scenarios from finding the right tool to complete a task, fixing machinery as well as route finding you will gain access to a section with a more mechanical feel. Here you will find the power room, computer central, more storage, a tool shed, some auxillary tunnels and an excavation site. It is obvious that this area was an important part of the complex. What you find residing here are more empty corridors (if you don't count the spiders that live in the tunnels), Red's incessant babbling on the radio and one bad ass rockworm that is best to avoid at all cost. Problem is avoiding it requires that you figure out exactly how to execute your only path of escape in just the right manner to avoid being eaten which is a hair raising test at the least. In your continued quest to navigate the abandoned mine, and locate Red in the hopes of finding some answers as to what happened here, a great amount of perserverance and determination will be required. As you continue forward the puzzle solving becomes more mechanical in that you must manipulate the machinery you find here in order to proceed; you will also find some heavy cases of problem solving with one notable being a room you must cross while jets of steam shoot from the floor. Your sanity is not garaunteed and answers, if you find them, do not come easy in this lonely place and you are constantly reminded of the possibility of failure via the subtle tones of silent empty halls, eerie bloodstained floors and even the frozen death grip of one souls last attempt to reach out to those who may come after him, or her. You are Philip and you have been lured here by your forgotten father Howard to search for what, you do not know. You find an old mine complex that had been conducting some sort of biological experiments after its manufacturing days had come to an end. You spend all your time now searching the old iron mine complex for a voice on the hand held radio you found that calls itself Red. The documents and other info you find in the dark rooms here give varied reports of old and new happenings at the facility but other than a handfull that hint at something going wrong with the experiments there is precious little to help you solve your current dilemma. You must find Red, it is your only hope, but even upon accomplishing this feat you will be faced with a decision that you actually have little choice over. Red does not offer any answers, only that suicide is against the rules, and therefor you must light the incinerator he has locked himself into and kill him. If this is not bad enough, you are teased yet again as you find a key in Red's remains. It surely opens a door but only false hope lives here. There are no answers only more darkness, more Penumbra; which clearly stated means a cloudy, indefinite area.